Archive for the ‘Sanctification’ Category

Posted on June 16, 2011 - by Stephen Murray

DeYoung, Tchividjian and the Issue of Sanctification

If you’re a regular reader of the blogs over at the Gospel Coalition you probably would have seen the interchange between Kevin DeYoung and Tullian Tchividjian. The friendly and charitable interchange/disagreement primarily revolved around the relationship of justification to sanctification. The whole discussion is worth a read because I think it is raising some fairly pertinent issues which have a direct impact on pastoral ministry, preaching, counseling and the whole of the discipleship process.

DeYoung’s first post can be read here. Tchividjian gave his first response and then DeYoung interacted with that response and tried to sum the difference between the two, and then finally Tchividjian gave his closing thoughts. I’ve got to say that I found myself more closely aligned with Tchividjian’s argument. I don’t think the two are far from each other but at the same time I think some of the nuances that Tchividjian argues for could potentially make a big difference to pastoral ministry, preaching, counseling and the whole discipleship process.

DeYoung closes his last post with this:

These issues matter because, on the one hand, some Christians are beating themselves up to be more like Jesus when they first need to realize that in Christ they’ve already died to sin and been raised with Christ. And on the other hand, some Christians are stalled out in their sanctification for plain lack of effort. They are lazy and need to be told so.

And then there are those who are confused, wondering why sanctification isn’t automatically flowing from their heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification. They need to get up and, as one author put it, “just do something.”

We all need God’s grace to believe what is true and do what is right. We died to sin in the death of Christ. Now we must put to death the deeds of the flesh.

The second to last statement - ‘there are those who are confused, wondering why sanctification isn’t automatically flowing from their heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification’ – just doesn’t quite compute with me. I’d want to tentatively argue that a lack of sanctification will always be accompanied by a lack of ‘heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification‘ and vice-versa. Maybe DeYoung and I would articulate what we mean by ‘heartfelt commitment to gospel-drenched justification‘ differently – that I could then understand. This section by Tchividjian makes far more sense to me:

I have to admit that I’ve never met anyone who passionately glories in the indicatives of the gospel who then gives “short shrift to the necessity of obeying biblical imperatives.” In fact, according to Romans 6:1-14, that’s impossible. Paul makes it clear in those verses that anyone who concludes that grace sanctions and encourages disobedience clearly doesn’t get grace.

Isn’t that the point of the “replacing affections” type theology of Edwards, Chalmers and Keller? I don’t want to rehash all the discussion – the interchange covers all that ground – but I bring it up because the whole thing is worth thinking about. I guess my personal experience, and my experience of people I’ve ministered to where I’ve seen significant growth, has been closer to the view Tchividjian presents than the view DeYoung presents. Have a read and decide for yourself.